Early in 2004, WAGT NBC 26 in Augusta (DMA 114) barely had a placeholder page for their website, lagging behind their CBS and ABC in-market competitors who had already made significant investments in building a Web presence. General Manager John Mann decided to rectify the situation, and began researching companies who could not only build a state-of-the-art website, but who could teach his sales team how to sell advertising on it. John reviewed and interviewed two companies before he met Timur Yarnall, President and CEO of Broadcast Interactive Media.

“I liked Timur's straight-forward, no-nonsense approach, and the fact that Broadcast Interactive would design and create a site from scratch and still come in far under the competitions’ bids. Broadcast Interactive’s Return on Investment Guarantee that comes with its convergent marketing revenue programs really sealed the deal,” said Mann.

The WAGT.com site was custom designed and launched in August of 2004, and the WAGT sales staff launched the Your Health Matters sales initiative in October 2004, two months later.

The station closed $162,000 in local health ad revenue, and began promoting their new website and the local health professionals all at once. The sponsors received an annual television advertising schedule promoting their business, and an Internet component that gave many of these health practices their first presence on the Web.

The station expects this category to grow as the promotional campaign reaches critical mass.

Excited by their success with Your Health Matters Today, Welcome Home was the second WAGT.com interactive revenue initiative launched by WAGT. Welcome Home was developed by Broadcast Interactive Media to increase station billing with any vendor who sells a household product. This program is designed to target smaller advertisers who specialize in the home improvement category and would not traditionally advertise on television.

WAGT launched the Welcome Home sales initiative on January of 2005, and closed $108,000 in ad revenue.

With both programs up and running, the station now has an expected $280,000 in new ad revenue for 2005, representing a gross ROI (Return on Investment) of over 6 to 1.